riding around on my green bike I eat the licorice pieces that i found spilled in my bag, (first brushing the lint off). I wonder if I will associate the taste of licorice with my bike from now on. This bike has become my portable world here in this new place. It is my constant companion used to hold groceries, flowers, books, water, journal, snacks, and mail. I ride through the campus full of students and learning and the smell of school. books and pencils. i think about little things I will leave there, tiny art pieces for those who walk around with open eyes.
today I have a meeting at the university and then I am off to the library to find books on mr. munari.
in january i will be teaching a couple of classes. on drawing. and one on journaling. i am excited because I will be doing all of the exercises too. i read somewhere that the root word of the word ‘educate’ is ‘edu’ which means to pull, or to ‘bring out’ that which is already there or that which is latent, (I can’t find the source for this offhand.) i like this image and remember how i felt during classes with my favourite teachers in art school. many days I would literally run to the bookstore to find books on things I couldn’t wait to read about. the teacher’s passion seemed contagious. and so I will share my books and excitement with the students, and I will show them how much i love to draw and write in my journals.
how there is nothing in the world better than to sit and watching the ink coming out of the pen.
to look at the small details.
to watch people.
to be your own research project.
to devour the world with your eyes.
to experiment.
we will see what emerges.
**********
also enjoying the work of Marti Guixe.

“When drawing the sun, try to have on hand colored paper, chalk, felt-tip markers, crayons, pencils, ball point pens. You can draw a sun with any one of them. Also remember that sunset and dawn are the back and front of the same phenomenon: when we are looking at the sunset, the people over there are looking at the dawn.” ~Bruno Munari
I am officially obsessed with designer/illustrator Bruno Munari. I must get this book.

i don’t know what i am craving today,
but it is something…food, adventure, new clothes?…
maybe it is a deep red coat with embroidery on the sleeves
a coat that speaks loudly when it enters a room, i like clothes like that.
a coat that asks you to go out on adventures together.
where does one find such a coat?
you can’t go out looking for it, you can only find it by happenstance
while walking down a street looking at the cracks in the sidewalk.
all of my clothes have magical qualities,
special powers sewn into the linings.
these clothes are even harder to come by.
Today is a two sweater day.
I pull on my most powerful sweater of all, the off white one that was crocheted by my mom.
I remember watching in amazment as she made the strange balls on the cuffs and collar using the small grey hook. the balls look like large mints someone has glued on.
she wore this sweater for most of my childhood and now I know why…it is surprisingly comfy.
and infused with secret warming properties that warm the wearer instantly.
you are never cold in this sweater.
that is how all sweaters should be.

She lives at the end of my street next to a quiet debris litered laneway that leads into the alley. It is not known for sure whether she is indeed an actual witch or if it is merely a neighborhood rumour. She can be seen hobbling down the street in the late mornings, the rickety wheels of her grocery cart making occasional scraping noises along the sidewalk. He cart is usually filled with various canned goods, the kind that sometimes make up the bulk of the diet of those who are old and lonely. Meals where the most minimal of preparaton is required, spagetti, sodium laden stew, potted meats. Her left eye remains transfixed on the sidewalk as she shuffles, I do not think she can see out of her right eye.

“The universe picks me up and drops me off without a map. I stand there on a road somewhere outside of any place I have been and just start walking home again.” ~Jann Arden
Reading this quote yesterday gave me a moment of intense relief, like taking a deep breath (after which you realize you have needed to breathe for a while but didn